Gabriel and Maxim Shamir

Who is Gabriel and Maxim Shamir?

Gabriel Shamir and Maxim Shamir, were Israeli graphic designers.

Both Shamir brothers studied graphics and design at the Kunstgewerbeschule of Charlottenburg in Berlin, Germany — Gabriel in 1926-30 and Maxim in 1928-33. Between 1930-31 Gabriel worked for the Lintas advertising agency in Berlin and between 1931-33 for Gumaelius in Stockholm. In 1934, they opened a graphic-design studio in Riga, Latvia, but the next year immigrated to Palestine. The brothers arrived during the fifth wave of immigration and very soon set up the Shamir Brothers Studio at Rothschild Boulevard 84 in Tel Aviv. The time was a lively and somewhat prosperous period, when the port of Tel Aviv was built, the Levant Fairs were inaugurated, and the first Maccabiah Games were held. These and other advents created a propitious climate for those like the trained and experienced Shamirs who could create effective propaganda and advertising material, such as posters. These early years of development, promotion and persuasion led to the 1935 establishment of the Department of Graphics at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design and The Society of Hebrew Graphic Artists in Eretz Israel of which the Shamirs were two of the cofounders.